Comedy Central Debuts New Shorties

Comedy Central’s inspired blend of stand-up comedy and Flash Animation, Shorties Watching Shorties, returns tonight at 10:30/9:30 central with new episodes. The show debuted in late April, introducing audiences to two wisecracking infants who sit in front of the TV watching animated versions of standup comedy routines.

Shorties Watching Shorties stars comedians Patrice O’Neal and Nick DiPaolo as the voices of the title toddlers. Tonight’s episode will use animation to illustrate comedy bits by Patton Oswalt, Mitch Hedberg and Dane Cook. O’Neal and DiPaolo are also regular guests on Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Collin Quin.

The series is exec produced by Denis Leary and his Apostle partner Jim Serpico. Serpico, Tom Sellitti and animator Eric Brown created the show, which grew out of Comedy Central’s series of 30-second interstitials titled House Arrest.

Comedy Central, which last night premiered the new animated series, Drawn Together, is also expanding its toon lineup with the pickup of Odd Todd, based on the animated webisodes from creator Todd Rosenberg. The series of shorts chronicling Rosenberg’s days of unemployment were featured on www.oddtodd.com. That website previously spawned a book, The Odd Todd Handbook: Hard Times, Soft Couch, which was published by Warner Books last year.